


Some You Give Away

by lazarus_girl



Category: Faking It (TV 2014)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-25
Updated: 2016-05-25
Packaged: 2018-06-10 13:54:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6959473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lazarus_girl/pseuds/lazarus_girl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the clock strikes twelve, Karma’s New Year plans quickly unravel. Uncertain what her future holds, she’s left questioning everything, including herself.</p><p>
  <i>“This is all because of a love you can’t explain.”</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Some You Give Away

**Author's Note:**

> Post finale fix-it. Follows canon, but deviates/expands on the 3x10 ending. Karmy centric but with mentions of Sabramy and Karmix, because they’re necessary to begin the work of retelling the story. This is by no means my finite vision of what could’ve happened with Karma and Amy, it’s just the start of themes that will be explored in future projects. That said, I do hope it eases your pain a little. I found it very cathartic to write! Title from/inspired by the La Rocca song of the same name.

_“When you know you love someone, when you know it's finally the right time,_  
_you don't just wait around for the right words, you just say the sentences_  
_even if they're all mixed up and imperfect.”_  
– Patti Callahan Henry, _Coming Up for Air._

***

Kissing Felix back was a mistake.

There were no choirs of angels. Nothing. Not even the dimmest stirring of a spark. You thought there might be; you hoped there could be, because the closer you got to him, the more you liked. There was _something_ , you were certain. You thought you understood what Amy meant when she said there was a _thing_ between them, but now you know you’re wrong. You don’t understand what was between him and Amy; you don’t understand what’s been him and you.

In your head, it seemed like the universe was finally being kind, sending in a white knight to save you from your own confusion. To stop yourself from thinking about things you don’t want, or can’t bring yourself to think about when it comes to you and Amy. He’s a great friend, you really like hanging out with him, and he’s so different to Liam, and Dylan, and every other boy you’ve ever had a crush on. He’s good, and sweet, and kind, and perhaps the only person who can even begin to understand how much you love Amy.

You love Amy. It’s easy here in your head, quiet in the protection of your skull: soundproofed from the world, from Amy, from everyone. Saying it out loud has consequences, and the longer you leave it, the more dire those consequences become.

Kissing Felix back was a mistake.

That’s all you can hear on loop in your head as you stumble back into the party, dazed. You can still see the look on his face as the realisation of what just happened dawned on him, seconds too late. Crestfallen. He recovered quickly, more able to hide his pain and his sadness than Amy ever could, but you saw it clearly enough.

You recognise it too easily. You know it too well. You’ve caused it too frequently.

_“That shouldn’t have happened.”_

That thought was there too, equally loud and accusing.

You were already thinking of ways to explain, rambling your apology in fits and starts of “I didn’t,” “I wasn’t,” “I shouldn’t,” and finally, “I’m sorry,” but it came out in a flustered ramble instead of with the cool, resigned logic Felix spoke with. None of those words were enough, none of them really showed how much you wanted _not_ to hurt him, and how desperately you wanted to undo all of it, to undo, to go back. Rewind. Erase. Reset. But if you started doing that, you have no idea where it would stop, like picking a loose thread on a sweater. That’s not true, you _do_ know. You know exactly where it would stop if you let it: the night of Farrah and Bruce’s wedding reception, to tell her the truth. Tell her how confused you are, and how she makes you feel things – so many things – and that you love her just like _that_ , in the way you once told her you didn’t.

Your mom says you’re impulsive and passionate and that makes you do things that aren’t easily explained. You can never explain this. Amy won’t understand, she’s just going to think you did it on purpose, in revenge. You didn’t, you really didn’t. It can’t even be blamed on alcohol. Seven sly sips from Goth Brad’s hip flask don’t count. It was his soft words, and his kind face, and the fact that he could save you from the pain of seeing Amy and Sabrina together, and dull its edges slightly, but it didn’t work. It’s sharper, keener than it ever has been. Suddenly, what happened with Liam and Amy makes some strange sort of sense. Twisted logic if ever you heard it.

But, you couldn’t explain any of that, because the words were gone, and then Felix was gone too, and you’re terrified he might do something stupid. In the end, you were left pacing outside, crying, sending lame texts and hoping he’d reply. You don’t know how you’d live with yourself if anything did happen.

 

 **Karma (12:16 AM):  
** Are you OK? I’m so sorry.

 **Karma (12:17 AM):  
** Please answer me.

 **Karma (12:17 AM):  
** Felix please.

 **Felix (12:23 AM):**  
I’m fine. It’s OK. I didn’t mean to scare you.  
I was talking to my sponsor.

 **Karma (12:23 AM):**  
Oh OK, and you’re fine? You feel OK?  
I’m so sorry. I screw everything up.  
Please don’t say we can’t be friends anymore?

 **Felix: (12:27 AM):**  
I just needed to talk to someone who wasn’t you  
or Amy or anyone. I wasn’t ready for any of this.  
I’m sorry I did that. I’d like us to be friends but  
I think I need some time.

 **Felix: (12:28 AM):**  
Don’t blame yourself. I’ll text soon.  
Dad thinks I need to check in for a while.  
Maybe he’s right. The party was difficult.

 **Karma (12:29 AM):**  
I’m sorry, I should’ve realised.  
We should’ve stayed home and  
had that movie marathon you wanted.

 **Felix: (12:32 AM):**  
Yeah, we should’ve. Soon?  
Take care. Tell Amy for me?

 **Karma (12:32 AM):**  
Of course. Don’t think I don’t care  
about you, OK? We need you back.  
Hester’s not the same without you.

 **Felix: (12:37 AM):**  
I know, Karma. I’ll get back there.  
I just need some space, I have a lot to  
think about. So do you. Amy’s happy tonight,  
but what about you?

 **Felix: (12:39 AM):**  
You can only live with the kind of sadness  
I saw in your eyes tonight for so long before  
it messes you up. I should know.

  

You didn’t reply to that. He’s always known there’s something more to this. An elephant in every room you stand in. There’s too much stuff that you don’t, can’t, or won’t talk about with Amy. You know he’s right, but you don’t know how to start doing the telling.

If Sabrina can stand up in front of a room full of people and profess her love, why can’t you? Except, it’s too late now. It’s much, _much_ too late and so many people have gotten hurt. This all because of a love you can’t explain.

All you’ve ever wanted is for Amy to be happy, and she is, crazy, stupid, happy, and if you do anything now you’ll ruin it, just like you did with Reagan, and she doesn't deserve that. You’re not sure you can bear to see her go through it either. It’s just you just never thought it would hurt you so much. You never thought that you’d be the one to give her away. When it came down to it, you always thought that maybe, just maybe, something would force your hand, that the universe would send you someone or something else to push you and make you braver.

Every word Sabrina said to her, you’ve felt it, you’ve thought it, and you’ve hated yourself for both. She’s braver than you’ll ever be. She deserves Amy’s love. You never did.

The realisation that you’ve lost her, for good, that she’ll have a whole life with Sabrina separate from you, dawns on you the second you collide with Amy on the crowded dance floor; dizzy, lightheaded, overwhelmed, like you’re going to throw up any second.

“Hey!” she calls loudly to make herself heard over the music.

She’s drunk. Drunker than you, and you’re not sure how. Her face is prettily flushed; the curls in her hair are starting to drop out, and that lipstick? Not so long-lasting. It’s gone. Kissed off. Everything about her says she’s kissed someone too. A wave of jealousy surges up and you hate yourself even more, wishing away images of them kissing, pressed up against each other in the bathroom stall. No, you can’t go there.

“Hey!” you reply, lamely, trying not to flinch when she reaches out for both your hands. “I got the DJ to play our song!”

“Where’s Sabrina?” you ask as she spins you around, and you hate yourself for helping her.

“She said we should spend the rest of our New Year’s together, just like we planned. We’re going on a date next week!”

Well done Saint Sabrina.

Amy smiles, that sweet, dopey smile she has when she thinks someone is wonderful. She used to look at you like that. She still does sometimes, but it’s rarer than it used to be.

“Awesome,” you offer, flatly. She’s enjoying herself too much to notice you.

“She’s the best, and so are you!” she beams, hands grabbing your face.

“I just want you to be happy,” you reply. It trips off your tongue quickly, your newest, practiced mantra.

She believes you.

“I’m _so_ happy,” she declares, kissing your forehead. Your stomach roils. “This is the best New Year's ever! Dance with me, Karm?” she asks, taking your hands again, palms sweaty, grip sliding.

You nod and smile, letting yourself be led closer to the centre of the dance floor as the familiar opening notes of ‘Straight up’ start to play and a cheer goes up. _Fucking_ Paula Abdul. You wish you didn’t have vivid memories of dancing around your parents living room with her while this song played on your mom’s favourite eighties music channel. You wish that you still had that living room, that TV existed, and that your home didn’t look like a crime scene. You wish you _had_ a home. You wish you had anywhere to go that wasn’t Amy’s house. You wish you didn’t have to share a bed with her tonight because you still have to go to Home Depot together and pick out stuff for your room, and there’s going to be an investigation and all sorts of other _crap_ to deal with because your parents have effectively abandoned you to go and live with _fucking_ Diane. Diane who _burned_ your house down. The universe needs to give you a break.

Amy stepped in without a second thought to rescue you. She always does. You don’t know how you’re going to deal with being around her all the time, and not be the most important person in her life.

As she spins you around, laughing and smiling, singing hilariously – adorably – out of tune, you understand what Lauren felt, you know where that jealousy she has for you comes from, because now, you’re in her position. You’re relegated, demoted, benched. Less important. Amy makes the person she loves the centre of her universe. She loves completely, absolutely, and without limit.

How could you have been so stupid? How could you turn her down and break her heart like that?

And then, you realise it, you have to take what you can get. You have to enjoy this time with her, any time, because it’s better than no time at all. So, you start to laugh and sing too, let her twirl you around that dance floor, listening to the crowd as they clap and cheer just like they did for Sabrina before. You can love her some of the time.

It’s enough. It has to be enough.

Being with her is enough for the next hour or so you spend dancing, laughing and making jokes about who’s hooking up, or their outfits while you sit it out and let your feet recover from dancing in heels. It’s like nothing happened. No Felix, no Sabrina. In this room, in the early stages of a new year, it feels like the clock has been reset. It’s enough when you walk home with her, arm-in-arm – swaying a little because Tommy snuck in wine coolers and you feel pleasantly warm – heels hooked over your fingers, planning the colour and the layout of your room, and all the fun sleepovers you can have now there’s no weird curfew shit to deal with from Farrah. By the time you turn onto Amy’s street, you’re hand-in-hand, fingers laced together and it feels perfectly natural. Perfectly _right_. It’s enough when you’re standing side-by-side in your PJ’s - hers, borrowed, far too long in the legs - fresh-faced, brushing your teeth, grinning like idiots because this is your life now. It’s enough until Amy’s phone rings, she races into her bedroom and you’re left to finish cleaning your teeth alone, because Sabrina’s on the other end.

It’s a slap in the face. A cold, hard, slap. Colder than the early morning air, colder than the running faucet. Cold. You’re the first loser and you have no one to blame but yourself.

You wait, hovering by the door to the bathroom, respecting the fact she chose close it. Ninety percent of the time she and Lauren used to leave it open, coming back and forth to talk to each other or trade insults. The fact that she closed it means something. She wants privacy; she wants you not to know everything for the first time in your lives - well, the third if you’re counting the whole liking girls thing and the Liam mess. You have to respect boundaries, especially hard ones like this, because so many others that exist between you and Amy have long since blurred.

Now you’re regretting those wine coolers, because you’re starting to get weepy and weird. The happy part of drunkenness never sticks for you. Typical.

You try not to listen, but you can’t help it. Once you’ve folded the towels and tidied the _disaster_ that is Amy’s half of the sink, tossing all the makeup wipes in the trash, you’ve got nothing left to do _but_ listen. The way she’s talking, soft, girly and flirtatious, punctuated with little peals of laughter, seems so intimate it’d be wrong for you to disturb her by walking out. It feels like you’re trespassing, like you’re an unwelcome intruder in her blissfully happy love bubble. You want to pop that bubble. Not because you want to hurt her, but because you’re petty, and jealous, and Sabrina doesn’t deserve her. You want to tell her that you basically fed Sabrina what to say, pulling out the best parts from her tearful ramblings to craft it into the most perfect declaration of love ever, but you can’t, because you’d look petty, and jealous, and vindictive, when all you feel is pain and hurt, a sadness you don’t have a name for.

She doesn’t need you anymore. You have no claim over her.

It’s useless, listening to one half of a conversation, and no matter how hard you try, you can’t quite match up Sabrina’s half in your head. You don’t know her – or this version of her – well enough. Neither does Amy, you think, bitterly, and immediately hate yourself for it.

_“I miss you.”_

_“I can’t believe how brave you were. It’s crazy.”_

_“How are we going to make it through a whole week of school before our date?”_  
  
_“Karma’s good. She’s fine. We had fun. It was nice to hang out. Thank you for not making me choose.”_

_“We’re just getting ready for bed and then we’re gonna watch some something on Netflix. I’m too wired to sleep anyway.”_

_“Come meet us at The Brew & Chew for breakfast maybe? I can’t wait to see you again.”_

_“Goodnight. Sleep well.”_

Every word, every happy word, feels barbed, sticking to your skin. When you look down at yourself you expect to see blood pooling on the pristine bathroom tile, but there’s nothing. Now you’re aware - painfully - of what it must’ve been like when you were dating Liam and talking about him incessantly with little regard for Amy’s feelings. This is payback, you guess. _Karma_. Your parents named you well after all.

“Karm, are you coming?” she calls, sweetly. “How clean do your teeth need to be?!”

“I’ll be right out,” you reply, amazed at how completely unaffected you sound. Your reflection in the mirror tells a very different story.

You still feel weird when you emerge from the bathroom, half expecting to find Sabrina there in the bed, staring you down. Sure, you joined forces for the greater good, but you’re never going to be friends. She’s going to be in Amy’s life now, and you have to deal with that. You’re not thrilled, but it beats being the cause of her misery. For that reason, and that reason alone, you’ll learn to _tolerate_ Sabrina, but the second she so much as looks at Amy wrong, you’re going for her.

“Finally!” Amy declares, flopping dramatically on her bed. “I was gonna send out a search party.”

“Sorry,” you shrug. “Gotta floss, plus, I didn’t want to interrupt you,” you add, bringing a glass of water to Amy’s side of the bed. She always gets thirsty at night. She glances over and smiles at the gesture, mouthing a thank you.

You hesitated before filling the glass, because now you’re wondering what’s too much to do, and say, and be because you don’t actually know what normal friends do. You’re naturally giving, but going off the looks Shane and Felix have given you sometimes, you think you and Amy have a level of intimacy that’s distinctly _not_ normal.

“Karm, don’t be stupid, we were just talking,” she reminds you, sitting up.

“I know,” you offer, lamely, as you sit next to her. “But, you need your space.”

“Yeah, but I need my Karma too,” she counters, beaming. You swallow hard, ignoring the way your heart is suddenly beating out of your chest. “Are you tired? I was thinking we could watch something to make up for the fact that I left you in the bathroom.”

You’ve never been more awake, and the thought of sharing a bed with her right now is a little too much to contemplate. No matter how you start the night, you always end up waking up with your arms around each other. She likes to snuggle, and usually, so do you, but right now, it feels like some weird brand of torture.

How did Amy ever cope?

“Where are we in our OTH binge?” you ask, deflecting, crawling back toward the pillows. “I wanna see whether Lucas and Peyton are gonna keep up with this ‘we’re just friends’ bullshit.”

The _deep_ irony of your statement isn’t lost on you. If only you were Lucas and Peyton. If only Amy _were_ Andy. Farrah always said Andrew was top on the list of boys names before Amy was born. Andrew Lee Raudenfeld became Amy Leigh Raudenfeld and that’s truly where your problems began. It’s the best and worst thing in the world.

“I was hoping you’d say that!” she smiles again, scooting back to copy you, reaching over for her laptop, opening it, and bringing up Netflix. “Nothing left to say but goodbye.”

At that, your head snaps up. “What?”

“Season four, episode eight,” she swats you playfully. “Dork.”

You laugh, reaching for the covers to burrow under, hoping they’ll hide your embarrassment, never gladder the room isn’t bright enough for her to see how hard you’re blushing. Just like you knew she would, she puts the laptop down between you and taps play. Just like you knew she would, she gets under the covers and snuggles against you. There’s a whole long scene with Nathan and some shady college scouts, then something with Rachel, and a whole mess with Lucas, Brooke, and Peyton that has Amy’s eyes all agleam, but you’re not really paying attention beyond that, because all you can feel is the warmth of Amy’s body against yours, and it takes all the will you have not to shirk her touch when her hand falls to rest on your thigh.

She’s being so sweet and affectionate you want to scream.

“You didn’t sing Gavin DeGraw,” she declares suddenly, and it makes you start. “You always sing.”

You blink and realise she’s right. There’s the sunset, and the bridge, and Lucas, and Gavin DeGraw is blaring because she always turns it up, and you don’t know where the hell the last five minutes went. When you don’t say anything, she sits bolt upright.

“Karm, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” you reply, flatly, focussing on the red Netflix progress bar, on _anything_ but her concerned face.

“Your face looks the opposite of nothing,” she replies, closing the laptop.

Now you have to look at her. You have no other choice if she’s going to believe you. “It doesn’t matter.”

She sighs, throwing back the covers and moving the laptop off onto her nightstand, episode forgotten. “Karma, just because, well, Sabrina and I are … trying out the whole dating thing, it doesn’t mean I don’t have time for you.”

The way she’s looking at you is painful. So sweet, so kind, so earnest. As soon as her hand covers yours, you yank it away. It’s a mistake.

“Just stop,” you snap, “I said it doesn’t matter!”

“Karma,” she says, softly, moving closer. “Please tell me, I don't like seeing you like this.”

“Can we not?” you move over, dangerously close to falling out of bed. “It’s been a long night, I’m tired,” you swallow thickly, throat tight. Your voice doesn’t sound right.

“What do you mean, what happened? I know we kinda lost touch for a while.”

Oh, if only she knew. Your immediate reaction is to laugh, even though nothing at all is funny.

“I don’t know, maybe it’s the part where my house burned down, and I had all these New Years plans, and none of them even went right,” you suck in a breath, feeling it all coming in on you at once. “I’ve got nothing, Amy!” you cry, finally breaking down into sobs.

“That’s not true, you have me. You’ll always have me,” she counters, brushing away your tears.

When she tries to wrap you in a hug you pull away, and she frowns. “But I won’t, will I? You have Sabrina now,” you shrug, not even bothering to hide your bitterness. It’s too late. You’re always too late. You’re always twenty steps behind everyone else. “You don’t need me anymore.”

What you’re really saying is ‘you don’t love me anymore,’ but you think it pretty much amounts to the same thing.

“Karma …”

All she says is your name, eyes brimming with unshed tears of her own, and something in you breaks. Something that won’t be easily fixed.

“Don’t do that,” you shake your head, scrambling out of the bed. She’s too close, this is too much. “Please don’t do that.”

“What happened when you left the party?” she asks, sniffing back tears. “It’s OK, you can tell me,” she pats the bed gently, motioning for you to sit.

Reluctantly, you do, leaving an ocean of space between you, because there’s nothing else to say except the truth.

“I kissed Felix.”

The air feels like it gets sucked out of the room the second you say it.

She blinks back surprise, her mouth gaping a little. “What?”

“He kissed me, whatever,” you correct. “At midnight,” you add, like the specifics of it matter.

Maybe they do, because if you weren’t so drawn to tradition, to stupid superstitions and sweet gestures, like countdown clocks and best friend necklaces, then you wouldn’t be in such a mess. You wish you could say it was a case of your heart over your head, but they haven’t been working in tandem for a long while now. If ever.

“Oh,” is all she says, and a brief, but familiar flash of pain crosses her face.

You’ve hurt her. Again.

“I’m sorry,” you blurt out, with no idea why.

You’re terrified she’s making connections, that she’ll think this is some sort of twisted revenge for what happened with Liam, but it’s so _very_ far from that.

“Karma, you have nothing to be sorry for,” she recovers, barely. “So what happened? Were there fireworks? Choirs of angels?”

There it is, the veil falls. Her guard is back up. She’s smiling, but it doesn’t reach her eyes. She used to look this way when you talked about Liam. You’re not sure what it means.

You’re looking down at your hands when you mumble, “No, I wish there were. I kissed him and I felt nothing,” she’s doing that gaping thing again, and you know why. It’s because she said that about Oliver once. A long time ago. You’re there; you’re almost there. You can tell her. You can try. “I thought it was a good idea but, because it's Felix, but it just felt _wrong_. I really fucked up.”

You leave out the part where you’ve probably sent him back to rehab, because really, there’s only so much Amy can take right now. You think she hit her limit a few minutes ago because she’s not reacting like she normally would; slower, a few seconds behind, like her brain’s on satellite delay.

“Hey, hey,” she jumps in, scooting across the bed toward you. “You can’t help how you feel. I’m sure you and Felix can still be friends. It doesn’t have to ruin everything.”

“Really? Amy,” you’re laughing through tears now, barely able to look at her, because this whole thing is _fucking_ ridiculous. Is she hearing herself? “Are you saying it didn’t ruin us? Are you saying it didn’t ruin you?” and then, because you’ve got no reason to lie anymore, “or me?”

“Fuck, Karma, that’s not what I meant!” she cries, frustrated, rubbing at her temples. “It’s different with us.”

“Why?” you’re angry now, starting to yell, and you don’t even know why you’re doing it.

“You know why,” comes her quiet reply, and it takes the anger out of everything all at once.

“Yeah, I do,” you swipe at your face, still annoyed at yourself. “I do because I wanted there to be fireworks and angels,” you lift your head, finally able to look at her. “I wanted it to be like when we kiss, but it _never_ is.”

This time, she’s got nothing. There’s no consoling words, no assurances. Nothing.

“And, I know,” you hold up your hands in defence as you watch her try and take it all in, raking a hand through her hair. “You’re happy and in I come, ruining your _fucking_ life. Again!”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

She doesn’t sound angry or confused, she just sounds sad. Desperately sad.

You laugh, that same, hollow, bitter laugh as before. There’s horrible symmetry to the fact you’re doing this in Amy’s room and she’s probably _not_ going to fall into your arms, because she has someone else now. Someone who was brave enough to love her. Someone who was brave enough to say it out loud.

Pursing your lips closed, you look up at the ceiling to stop yourself from crying. “Why do you think?”

You’ve thought about it a lot, you’ve kept yourself awake trying to work out why you’ve held back and said nothing when she’s given you the opportunity, time and again. You used to think it was to protect yourself, to keep your heart from getting stomped on, like you did to her, but now you know it’s not. It’s really not - you want to protect your future. You want to protect sharing a college dorm, and living next door to each other, and being godmothers to each other's children, because if you lose that, you lose _everything_ you’ve ever pinned your hopes on.

In every version of your future, Amy’s there. A constant.

“It wouldn’t have ruined us,” she says calm and even after what feels like a long time. “And, for the record, you never ruined my life," she continues, her mouth just curving into a smile.

“I didn’t?” you blurt out, surprised.

“No,” she replies, barely above a whisper.

“I wish we could go back to the night of the wedding. I wish I never broke your heart. I wish …” you trail off, the words sticking in your throat.

“What?” she coaxes, gently.

“I wish I kissed _you_ at midnight,” you manage, through fresh tears.

Silence. The world stops, but not quite.

Then, she does something you never expected. Wordlessly, she leans over for her alarm clock, and turns the hands backwards three and a half hours, setting it between you.

“It’s midnight.”

“Amy,” you say, brokenly.

“Kiss me, and then we’ll know,” she offers, like it’s a simple solution. Maybe it is.

“We can’t, what about Sabrina?”

You can’t believe you actually said that out loud. She’s practically throwing herself at you, and yet, here you are; still engaging in ridiculous self-sabotage for a girl that went to ridiculous lengths to come between you and Amy, and then you helped her win back Amy’s heart, parroting your words like a ventriloquist’s dummy because everything she said sounded whiny, pathetic, guilt-inducing, self-critical, and nothing approaching what Amy deserved.

In the middle of all that mess, you realised what had been in front of you all this time, and you watched the hope of it disappear when Amy kissed her, and held her, and gave her another chance. Felix was just _there,_ in the right place in the right time, the right boy. Or, so you thought.

“I’m not blind, Karma. I saw your face when she was talking. I know you. I know how you speak,” she pauses to steady herself, “it was you, not her, wasn’t it?”

This time, there’s no stuttering over words you can’t spit out. There’s no denials, or backpedalling, or rushing from the room into the arms of someone else. Instead, you go where you’ve always wanted to, but fought every step of the way. You surge forward; toss the alarm clock out of the way, ignoring how it might be broken, and grab her face with shaking hands before you finally kiss her. It’s just a quick, hard press of your lips against hers, like a full-stop, halting the questions, halting the fear, halting everything but the loud sound of your heart beating right out of your chest. You’re not even really sure that she’s kissing back until she does, starting to give a little.

Yielding, that’s what she’s doing. She’s yielding to you, and it’s a little too much to take.

It’s over as fast as it began and you pull away, surprised at yourself. You shouldn’t have done it. You _really_ shouldn’t have, but you can’t help it.

“Karma," she says, shakily. It sounds like a different word. “Karma, we ... ”

“I know,” you say, small, terrified, staring down at your lap.

“What we are doing?”

She looks so _lost_ all of a sudden, when she seemed so secure and so certain. You haven’t seen her look like that for such a long time. It’s as close as you can get to looking at your own reflection in the mirror.

You don’t know what you're doing. You don’t know at all. You cheat, and you lie, and you cause nothing but pain to everyone you love and never want to hurt. But, all you want to do is kiss her again, and again, and again, because _oh_ , were there were fireworks. There were _so_ many fireworks, streaking over some invisible sky in your head. It’s the most horrendous kind of relief to realise you were just kissing the wrong person, maybe even the wrong gender, you don’t know.

“I don’t know, but I don’t want to stop doing it.”

It’s so brazen, so shameless, so without filter. You have no idea why you’re not holding back.

“Oh, God, Karma,” she replies, sighing deeply. “Please don’t say things like that. You’re making this really hard. I can’t do this … I can’t … I shouldn’t want to keep kissing you, but I do. I always do.”

Any moment, you expect her to yell that it’s too much, and this time, she’ll be the one who runs from the room, but she’s not.

She heaves a sigh, whispering, “Fuck it,” in a long unsteady breath.

Then, she’s coming closer, tilting your head up to capture your lips. It’s a slow kiss that’s almost painful in its gentleness. It reminds you of that threesome kiss in the cheap motel lifetimes ago. Except, her hands aren’t shaking anymore, they’re steady and strong, guiding you back to the mattress as she deepens the kiss. You moan into her mouth, overwhelmed by everything that’s happening. You never expected it to be like this. You never expected to want this. You never expected her to want this too.

Now, it’s your turn to yield, easily, so easily, deafened by the sound of those fireworks and those angels, building to a celestial chorus the longer and deeper you kiss, bodies pressed close together. After that, it gets too loud to hear anything at all, because Amy’s shirt is up, off, over her head, thrown into the dark. She hovers over you for a moment, letting you look, gazing back down at you with a kind of _hunger_ you’ve never seen before. There’s so much of her. There’s so much skin and she’s so beautiful – beautiful abs, and beautiful breasts, and beautiful _everything_ – and you’re aching to touch her, but terrified of what might happen if you do. A few seconds later, all of that flies out of your head because, _God_ you feel like you’re doing to die because she’s kissing your neck and slowly inching up and under your shirt, carefully stroking your skin. Arching your back into her touch, desperate, hands twisting the sheets, you let your eyes flutter closed as her hips grind into yours and you give in to her. You let go. You fall, sink gladly into her touches; into every careful brush of her mouth on yours, every gentle sweep of her tongue, every soft caress of her fingertips, tracing patterns and shapes that’ll leave marks behind that no one else can see. The fireworks are spectacular.

Nothing about this is a mistake.

***

 **Footnote** : If you want to make your voice heard re: MTV’s cancellation decision please tweet them, tell them what _Faking It_ means to you and what it means to lose it. For those of you that don’t tweet, please sign and share **[this](https://www.change.org/p/mtv-let-mtv-faking-it-continue) ** petition to help the #SaveFakingIt cause.


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